


[S] Don't Panic!

by domesticheart



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams, Homestuck
Genre: ADVENTURE!, Alien Cultural Differences, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Androids, Bounty Hunters, Danger!, Devilwasps, Explosions!, F/F, IN SPACE!, More characters to be added, Nanobots, Planet-hopping, Poorly-described science stuff, Spaceships/Space travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticheart/pseuds/domesticheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska Serket, an alien who has gained a spaceship by highly illegal means, arrives on Earth. While there, she befriends one John Egbert, and then snatches him away so that they can have the time of their lives exploring the galaxy together. With the help of their very own <em>Hitchhiker's Guide</em>, of course. Which she has also stolen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyky25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyky25/gifts).



> I decided to start posting this since I'm already over 20,000 words in, and the ending's written up, but I haven't worked on it in a while. I've got about six-seven shortshortshort chapters prepared, though. Grammar and spelling might be a little off as well.
> 
> So, this is basically stuff that takes place _before_ the events of HHGTTG, and it'll end right at the beginning of that book. It probably isn't much of a crossover, but I'll try to make it seem like one. Uhm, wow, that seems super unclear. So, lemme see... the characters from Douglas Adams' book will be mentioned very sparingly. Homestuck characters, however, will abound.
> 
> Have fun reading, Ky! This one's for you. :D
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of any elements of Douglas Adams' books, nor do I claim any rights to the Homestuck characters tossed around within this story.

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen ... 

—

In a surprising turn of events that bends on the almost miraculous, Vriska Serket has survived.

Somehow, through the harsh trials of her upbringing on the planet Alternia, she is still living. That world, with its two luminous moons swinging in the sky like two great pendulums, had been filled to the brim with numerous dangers.

For one, as the days were far too bright for her sensitive Alternian eyes to adjust to, she had been forced to become nocturnal and only venture out during the later, duskier hours. Even then, with the wild lusii stalking the purple, dappled twilight deserts as well as the bio-luminescent leaves of the jungle-like areas, it had been a constant struggle to forge onward into adulthood.

As a young Alternian, Vriska had been lucky to be born within one of the higher castes on the hemospectrum, a system that divided the planet's inhabitants by the color of their blood. Her blood being a deep cerulean blue, she had easily slipped into her role of inspiring fear in the lower castes; Mainly through using rust-blooded individuals and orangier hues to feed her immense arachnid lusus.

But, despite finding a certain fiendish delight in terrorizing those weaker than herself, Vriska dreamed of going off-world, especially after her lusus had been crushed by a falling cliff side near to her hive. It was only something adult trolls did, but the idea appealed to her so spectacularly that it could not be rendered from her mind.

Upon discovering an imperial vehicle capable of achieving warp-like speeds submerged in a lonely bay area, Vriska had known of the risks of stealing something from the current Tyrian empress. An incredibly expensive bounty would be placed on her head that could only be paid in full with blood —redemption in Her Imperious Condescension's fuschia-burned eyes, nigh impossible.

Yet the vessel had gleamed enticingly, a brilliant crimson under the pinkish light cast by one of Alternia's moons. Waves gently murmured all around, their soft, downy hands grasping against the jagged rocks.

Vriska's pants were soaked almost entirely through, but her cold blood kept her warmer than what a lower blood may have felt. Still, the chill arched up her body, causing her hands to shake as she smoothed one calloused hand across the ship's sleek surface.

A thought crept into her mind like a feline stalking an inattentive little sparrow chick: Maybe, just the once, the fish queen wouldn't notice.

Grinning wickedly, Vriska had popped the ship's hatch, and a long, fizzing hiss welcomed her home.

—

The human body is composed of 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1.0% Phosphorus, 0.25% Sulfur, and a whole bunch of other chemicals and elements that no one cares about, mostly.

It is estimated that it would take roughly three pebibytes, a single pebibyte equal in amount to just 1,125,899,906,842,620 binary digits, to download an exact copy of the right balances and measurements needed to create an exact replica of the human frame. Due to the galaxy-wide ethical issues involved, however, it has never reached fulfillment.

Morality accounts for .00003% of most judgement dished out by humanity, as well. There have been studies, ranging all over the globe and pertaining to multiple demographics as well as psychographics.

There have also been studies in which it has been proven that, with the right application of numbers, percents, and assertions of something being commonly known, that humans will believe anything. Even randomly-generated online news article headlines are believed, and statements such as "why is no one talking about this?" are outrageously common, as there is in fact either nothing to talk about or the subject has been debated for weeks on the sitting room's television.

It is therefore a sound conclusion to draw that humans are also composed of a great amount of stupidity.

Alternian trolls, too, are of no exception to this rule.

—

The fish queen noticed immediately.

The planet below is hot, dipping into a temperature of approximately 50 degrees Celsius on a cool day. Its clouds form intricate shapes in the sky, sometimes vaguely similar to a porpoise or a lion, depending on who you ask. Large desert ruins spring up around its more civilized cities, cultivated by the planet's native inhabitants.

The place has been visited very recently by a small number of Chagrarian miners, who seek the rare minerals that lie at its core, but they will sorely regeret their mistake of issuing a report for all of the galaxy to see.

This is Izushlu IX, and it is currently under attack.

Suspended above the planet's surface is a large, glaringly red spaceship. An Alternian battle cruiser, the finest of its kind, engineered specifically at the Condescension's request. It's mission: Tear the entire planet apart, and leave the valuable resources behind.

Missiles of all shapes and sizes crash into ancient structures, buildings that have been there seemingly since the planet's conception. The homeless, the rich, the poor, the well off; All are trying to flee the carnage.

While reclining on her throne above, long fingernails stroking along her 2x3 pronged trident, Her Imperious Condescension had been enjoying a brief pause in her quest to dominate the galaxy, and was taking Izushlu IX on the side for pleasure. Conquering worlds and subjugating all of their inhabitants is hard work, after all. Anyone would agree.

A channel of holographic maps spread before and around her, and in its center was the pearly heart of this dry planet located someplace in the Gold Rush System, which contained riches beyond compare. Composed of the world's uniquely developed foraminifera, it was a rare kind of treasure, glowing and ripe for the taking.

Several tiny red dots, like angry fire ants swarming an apple core, mark those that are her collateral militants, going into the brunt of things to clear the way for the rest of them. The Condescension drew a claw around its spherical shape tenderly, a sharp grin spreading over her lips, teeth gleaming in the dark of the ship.

Her immense folds of wavy stardust-flecked hair, which billowed and flowed around her like the famed murky waters of Teuvlia V, began to chime rhythmically, startling the Condescension and causing her barbed fins to flare out instinctively.

A frown appeared on her face, and all of the trolls operating the ship immediately set about working more efficiently than before. An olive-blood engineer, five floors below the troll queen, began to seize up and shriek at the machine he was working with, one eye twitching uncontrollably.

Reaching out with one finely-muscled arm, the Condescension languidly delved into her hair, a crease appearing between her brows in her concentration. Several indigo-bloods in the cargo bay began to slam their skulls and horns together in a fashion not dissimilar to sparring Terran mountain goats.

Just as the beeping had almost ceased, the Queen of Trolls unearthed her cellular device from her figurative mountain of hair. It was a highly-advanced piece of technology, created to withstand great amounts of oceanic pressure commonly experienced at the bottom of most seas, and also to keep track of all the Condescension's many interstellar exploits and assets.

Just below a notification about the President of the Galaxy's— some cannon fodder by the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox — up and coming press conference, an alert outlined all in garish red appeared. It blinked repeatedly as the fuchsia-blood's clawed thumb grazed over it. A text window opened, describing a grave offense; imperial property theft.

Unblinking, Her Imperious Condescension's hand clenched, and the specialized communication device crumbled into bits in her grasp. Shards of glass clattered to the foot of her throne, and a lower-blooded attendant hurried forward to clear the pieces. With shaking hands and courage, they held another device up for the Condesce's appraisal.

Smiling thinly, her serrated teeth bared behind her lips in a shark-like grin, the empress accepted the proffered device, and tapped lazily at the screen to bring up a visual of the innards of the stolen property: A young blue-blood puttering about in the cockpit of an imperial ship. In the ruler's peripheral vision, the attendant fled as silently and swiftly as possible so as not to incur her wrath.

A faint snarl curled on the Condescension's face, tinted with her royal blood. "Gill, you're in for a world of pain," she drawled, reaching for a comm that would allow her to tap into the nearest imperial drone, designed to efficiently smother, dispatch and remove minor blips such as this one.

Then, a sudden burst of light and laserfire flared across the wide clear surface before her, sending veins of grey smoke arching through the dark sky. It seemed that the planet's inhabitants weren't intending to surrender their home world so easily, and the enraged troll stayed her hand before altering its wandering course towards a different comm.

A battleship's gotta have a commander, after all, and she hasn't come this far by leaving her people, her soldiers to their own devices. The rebel can wait a little longer to get the beat down of a lifetime.

She will not forget this day.

—

Near the planet of Syaz Prime is nothing particularly interesting. It is big, purple, and speckled all over. However, it's inhabitants are a race of telepathic marsupials, mostly opossums, with the ability to predict the future and digestive foam glands in the palms of their hands. They don't like to talk about it much.

Their planet is technologically advanced, lacking in flying cars but with hover bikes to make up for it. According to a poll taken on Stardate who-even-cares, one of its inhabitants favorite past-times is to stroll along the acidic seas wearing safety goggles and copious amounts of pomegranate-scented lotions.

Another favorite past-time is dumpster-diving, but there are special facilities for it. Diving into your neighbor's own personal dumpster is considered a very great offense punishable by death. There are roughly 5547 toll-free phone numbers that can be dialed to make arrangements for optimal dumpster exploration.

Despite all of their scientific and technological accomplishments, they never invented the pocket or the bag. They just had to carry things instead.

When the reptilian clothier and bag salesman Thomas Saddler arrived on their world, they were extremely embarrassed and purchased his entire stock. He now lives in a mansion near Richmond, Virginia.

Syaz Prime also happens to be the celestial sphere where one individual, native to the planet of Alternia, managed to pilfer a copy of the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ off of some unfortunate, but blessedly intoxicated, person. They were exceptionally lucky to get away with this, and would brag about it for quite a while after traveling all over the better part of the known and sometimes unknown universe.

—

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ is immensely useful in almost all situations, similar to a towel in its potential solution-y-ness to all of one's problems. It would be almost invaluable if only the _Guide_ 's writers could keep a right hold of it.

Unlike some of the Guide, there are a few who are careless with it. This is a severe miscalculation of trust on the part of those at the Guide HQ, who are supposed to keep up with this kind of thing, really. You can't run a business with a bunch of numbskulls bashing their heads together, anyways, and if you keep on losing the product and also valuable input, who's to say that it might not fall into the wrong hands, or, indeed, tentacles?

One such careless traveler is currently on the planet of Mikaeus Six, and they have sorely misplaced their Guide. They sluggishly try to detect it, pawing at the surrounding metallic bar, and succeed in knocking over several brightly colored liquids in their wake.

Mikaeus Six is famous for its good drinks, questionable government, and its inhabitants, who have odd features that resemble Terran sea creatures. However, the Guide worker distinctly remembers that they had previously been on Syaz Prime, enjoying a funny smelling drink with a funny, toothy gal. An amber-colored haze continues to muddle their thoughts.

"Hey man," a prickly bartender tells him, a pillar of stone through a raging alcohol-induced migraine. There is a jellyfish-like extension stuck to the side of his face, throbbing in time with the pulsating, indigo blue music. "That'll be more on your tab if you keep that nonsense up. I won't have it, I tell you."

The traveler goes slack and continues to drool, wallowing in the blissful hold of sleep once more, and resolves to locate their copy of the Guide after this planet's sixth burning sun has made a full revolution once more.

Little do they know that their Guide is fast approaching the Sol System at speeds quicker than lightning, which is quite a long while away.

—

Through disastrous military campaigns and across many fast-paced months, the Condesce forgets.

She's very comfortable on her bloodied throne, still.

However, this does not mean that her harried secretary has not taken their precious time in filing a report and setting a substantial bounty. An elderly teal-blood, streaks of her blood color staining her hair in the darkness of the ship, had spent a good deal of the time trying to figure out how to move the cursor, tapping her gnarled claws at the screen itself in frustration.

The overseer, a purple-blood of high standing by the name of Orphaner Dualscar, had watched bemusedly from the sidelines as the Condesce's personal secretary swore and nearly swiped the touch-sensitive motion pad off of her steel-reinforced desk. Finally, when it seemed that there could be no more amusement or slightly awkward confusion to be drawn from the other troll's plight, he had intervened and sent her to be mentally evaluated or to at the very least be given a basic computer applications course.

A few rushed e-mail conversations later, and Vriska Serket's fate is sealed.

It is a good thing that bounties requested by the Alternian Empire are so frequent, for there is quite a long waiting list. It could be months before the bounty is presented to the public, if not an entire year.

The joke's on you, fate!


	2. PART TWO

She has been on Earth for roughly two months and eight days without seeing any imperial drones scouring the skies for her. Vriska believes this to be a superb accomplishment, but that doesn't stop her from throwing cautious looks towards the clouds or crossing her claws each time she sets foot outdoors.

Now, sitting on a bench in a designated area that has for some reason been set aside to grow trees, shrubs and ducks in — Vriska suspects for agricultural reasons—, she is feeling rather content with her life.

Don't get her wrong; the planet's totally boring, and mostly harmless at best. But, if remaining on the down-low means avoiding certain doom, she's more than willing to sacrifice another interplanetary excursion. At least, for a couple more days. Maybe. Yeah.

Wincing, the Alternian scratched at her fashionable wrist-watch, which was actually a device for converting her appearance to something more comprehensive and/or acceptable by human standards. Or, in truth, a look that wouldn't immediately have her placed in a laboratory to be poked and prodded at.

She has received many compliments on her choice in wrist wear, although she's had quite a rough go of it trying to explain to people that it isn't digital at all.

There are several things that the not digital watch cannot do, like modify her aggressive behavior and self-centered tendencies to start fights just to get everyone's eyes on her.

That had been how she had met John, though — after developing a vestigial bone to pick with an automated message that a totally unnecessary machine repeatedly droned at her, he had politely approached, told her that it was an automated message that meant no real offense, and then grinned a dopey grin at her with teeth too large for his mouth.

Taking this obvious baring of teeth as a sign of aggression, Vriska's primal instincts had kicked in and had caused her to act according to the situation at hand.

To put it simply, she had punched him in the nose. Hard.

Several wet exclamations of pain later, clouded with blood and confusion, Vriska realized her mistake. Using very human methods which she had observed on the sly, she had attempted to make peace without ever actually having to apologize.

"What's up?" she had asked, haltingly, wishing for all the world that she'd researched human behavior more while in the safety of an eavesdropper's distance.

Her new acquaintance had looked bewildered, blood streaming out from between the fingers cupping his nose protectively.

"What's up," he had repeated back to her, voice oddly flat and nasally.

Vriska had then clapped him a little too hard on the shoulder after that brief exchange, desperately grasping for a proper approach to the situation. After flinching sharply and staring at her face for way too long, which would be a challenge on her planet, the squishy human had somehow taken her strange behavior in stride.

That had been a month and a half prior; Vriska still does not have a handle on the whole pretending to be human thing, but at least no one has really noticed it, or, if they have noticed it, been indecent enough to point her faults out.

The air has started to grow steadily colder, as well, and many of the humans passing her by on the sidewalk are bundled up in multiple layers of clothing. Earlier in the week, John had mentioned something about a substance called "snow" and, when questioned further, had revealed that it was frozen water which falls from the sky.

Vriska is not particularly psyched about this unfortunate turn in events, and suspects that Earth's atmosphere is actively trying to murder its inhabitants. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she might even arrive at the conclusion that the Earth has perceived her as some kind of contamination, and is trying to figuratively smoke her out with the cold.

It is not a pleasant thought.

She figures that it's about time she went planet-hopping again; there is a certain rush to it that can't be matched by the city's grey sky and traffic jams, even if said traffic often gets a rise out of many. She still remembers seeing a particularly upset woman tearing clumps of brown hair out of her head in fury when the traffic was stuck in place for roughly two hours. Vriska had laughed from a nearby bus station, and had made a quick escape when she realized she'd been caught having a little giggle.

And, hey, if she decides to bring a friend along this time, then so what?

It'll turn out just fine.

—

On the morning of May ninth, a milky, golden-tinged Saturday sun rose into the sky. It lifted the cotton white clouds as if it were some sort of muscular exercise buff who squints menacingly at new gym attendees, unsure of their merit but wholly uncaring and judgmental, and shone piercing rays of light through one Johnathan Egbert's window.

He lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood, peaceful in its normality but stifling with the amount of conformity it promoted. However, John was comfortable with this; he had a nice job, nice neighbors who didn't try to actively murder or cannibalize him, and other genuine gifts that good fortune might bestow upon those who are lucky.

The wind chill on that day also happened to be below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, which was still generally unpleasant but well enough. He would just have to wear a sweater, maybe the one with the prancing reindeer on it that his grandmother made for him last Christmas. His eyes slid to the much less daunting blue jacket strewn across the bedroom's floor and then to the aged Ghostbusters shirt hanging loosely from the ceiling fan.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on if you had watched the weather channel the night before), there was snow on the ground, spread out like powder across a pristine counter top. Outside of his window was a tree with a tire swing attached, an ordinary mailbox, and a lovely white picket fence. John had been rather proud of that fence, having spent the better part of the last Spring painting it. This picket fence was to John as the Starry Night was to Vincent van Gogh.

It was a pity that in the next five seconds a vehicle similar to a Porsche crashed into it, sending chunks of plywood and peeling paint flying through the air. John awakened fully to the racket, tossing off his bed wrappings in doing so, jumped up to peer out of his window, and let out a cry of despair that only a foiled artist can emit.

To his horror, the door to the offending vehicle opened, and the criminal who had committed this act happened to be familiar to him. The criminal scrutinized their surroundings, shook their head several times in short succession and appeared to be making light tsking noises through the glass pane of the window, and then turned to face John's wrath. They waved up at him, grinning unrepentantly.

"Oh my god," John said, staring down at who he now recognized to be a happy acquaintance of his, Vriska Serket, who does not, in fact, own a car. He observed her frantic waving for a moment more before yanking his window open a crack, the chilly morning air reddening his fingers.

"Come on loser," Vriska shouted, gleefully, her grin just a tiny bit wicked. "We're going on a trip!"


	3. PART THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for putting off posting this chapter for so long, I wanted to finish the next chapter of TEEH beforehand! Which, I didn't actually do, but. Yeah! 
> 
> Also, on the Guide's appearance: I haven't actually seen any of the movies, but I distinct recall seeing a toy or something that looked just like a graphing calculator that was advertised as a Guide. Sooo, ye.
> 
> Enjoy Ky!

Vriska leads him out into a field, and for maybe the tenth time since he has known her John begins to suspect that she's a serial killer.

It is totally empty, barren and devoid of all signs of life. All of the tall grass in it is frozen solid, creating a sheen of white occasionally broken by gleams of ice. In the distance, he can see a farm house with smoke lazily curling out from a chimney. It seems cozy, but is still an awfully long ways away.

_Well,_ he thinks, mock cheerfully. _At least if she pulls an axe on me, I can try to make a run for it._

After casting a surreptitious look at her arms and legs, however, John believes that she could catch up even if he had a whole minute to run ahead. Yikes.

"John," she says, snapping her fingers eight times in front of his eyes. She has a weird thing about the number eight, and John recalls this one time where she refused to leave off the alcohol until she had taken eight consecutive shots. That was hilarious, even thought she'd gotten really sick afterwards all over the nice bathroom stall. "Hey, John, are you even listening to me here?"

Looking thoughtful, John tries to remember what Vriska has said within the last five minutes. Nothing that bears fruit manifests itself in his brain, and so he goes with the safest reply: a shrugging of his shoulders that could mean anything and is overall just ambiguous enough to not cause any offense.

"Uuuuuuuugh," Vriska groans, and tramps off across the icy field, frozen plants splintering apart under her impressive stomping. John follows, a little cowed.

They end up walking under the cover of a silent forest. Boughs of trees, weighted down with lovely snowy snow, tip precariously towards them from above. Skeletal limbs reach up towards the sky and scrape along the ground, covering the small dens of furry hibernating animals. At one point, even through the steadily drifting snowfall, John catches a glimpse of bright red cardinals darting amongst the dead branches and ashen-colored leaves. They're really beyond the outskirts of the bustling city now.

Looking ahead, the only sound being their crunching footsteps, John sees more spots of crimson breaking through wayward branches and mounds of white. He peers more closely at it when it remains stationary unlike the flitting of the birds, and becomes more and more confused as they draw nearer. It would seem that this is their destination, although he can't imagine what it could be.

Vriska brushes aside a branch, shakes her hair free of frost like a scruffy dog, and they arrive at a clearing. The sky above is cloudy and grey, flakes of snow still making their wayward descent.

In the center of the clearing is a spaceship. John has never seen a spaceship before, but he quickly eliminates the possibility of the large object being a submarine, despite the docks that lay not even fifteen minutes from his house. It is vaguely pod-shaped, with spiky-looking arches coming off its sides like the fins of an unfriendly deep sea fish.

A pale insignia in the shape of a fork, faded and chipped away by time, has been sloppily painted over with a crude blue symbol that could either signify infinity or the number eight.

John's mouth plops open. "Wow."

He looks towards Vriska, expecting her to be just as startled and in awe. Instead, she's smiling smugly back at him, her arms folded across her chest and eyes shining with pride.

"I know, right? I had to work pretty hard to get it here," then, she pauses once, clearing her throat and shifting her eyes around before allowing her face to split into a mischievous grin that would make the Cheshire cat proud. 

John notices that she speaks softer now, as if afraid someone may be eavesdropping on their conversation in the middle of nowhere. "Although, not that hard, really."

There's something John thinks he might be missing here. Something important. He casts his gaze up towards the sky, and gets a snowflake in an eye for his trouble.

As he paws at his eyeball and blinks vigorously against tears, Vriska continues to talk, ignoring the crisis threatening John's physical well-being. John's a little irked that she doesn't even pause to ask why he's flailing around so much. Inconsiderate, really. "Anyway, so, I figured, hey? Why not show my great human pal my super rad spaceship, am I right?"

" _Your_ spaceship?" John interrupts her. Vriska looks ticked but does a good job of hiding it, smothering her obvious annoyance with an easy grin that's kind of threatening. Like she might go for his throat at any time at her leisure.

"Well, duh! Why else would I have said it's mine? It's not like I stole it or anything. Don't be preposterous, John." She looks a little sketchy all of a sudden, even more so than usual, nervous tics traveling through her hands and face. John ignores these in favor of soldiering on to other topics of mutual interest.

"So, like, what? Next thing you're gonna tell me is that you're an alien!" His eyes are widened, hands and eyebrows raised for emphasis of his disbelief. Vriska considers telling him to put those brows back down right this instant, but decides to be generous and overlook it. She is so, _so_ generous. Like, the patron of generosity here. She should get a plaque and a statue in her honor.

Pressing her tongue into her cheek, Vriska scrabbles at her wrist watch. "Don't freak out," she tells John. "Whatever you do. Don't panic, got it?" After hesitating for a moment, he nods, and looks on.

John is still staring at her, shivering in his rubber rain boots from the cold. Why are they even out here? When she had said field trip, he had thought Vriska meant like a wax museum or something of the like. That seemed like something she would be into; creepy stuff, that is. Maybe an auto dealership would have been up there with what he had expected. This dumb science fiction prop was boring, anyway, if all she wants to do is stare at it.

That is, until Vriska's wristband comes off with a snap.

There is literally a grey-skinned alien standing before him. Not a Grey Alien with the big black insectoid eyeballs and large, swollen fingertips. An alien that he has known for like a month, but an alien all the same. She still has the same glasses and lopsided grin, though, as she cheekily awaits his reaction.

To his credit, John does not recede into bouts of unintelligible screaming. Instead, his cries form very clear, concise words that are definitely reminiscent of standard English.

When he is finished, Vriska is still standing there, giving him a weird look. Of course, when you've got upwards of one pupil in a single eye, any particular looks you dish out are bound to be strange.

"Oh my god," John wails at her, weak in the knees. She has _horns_. Horns that look like elongated _candy corn_ , of all things. "Oh my god. You're not going to like, I don't know, abduct me and implant your sick alien babies in me, are you?"

"Ew," the grey-skinned alien replies, thankfully still with Vriska's normal voice. She sticks out her tongue at him as she speaks, and it seems to be vaguely blue-colored. "Eew! Gross, John! Ugh! Talk about disgusting."

She looks super disgusted by the mere thought, too, and John is momentarily comforted by the favorable change in events. Then, something else occurs to him.

"Hold up, am I not attractive enough or something? Because if that's why not, I am going to demand a refund on the alien sent to abduct me, and if I don't get it I'm gonna contact the alien authorities for unfair treatment or something!" The worst part is that he actually seems upset that he is not, in fact, going to be carrying around, as he said, 'gross alien babies'. The alien before him wrinkles her nose and does her best to avoid his eyes. Awkward.

Vriska rubs a palm against the side of her face, and, hey, in hindsight, Vriska doesn't really seem like a name a human would use. Isn't that the name of a star or a constellation? John could swear by Wikipedia if required to.

Also, her fingernails look almost like claws, and the orange and yellow-tinted horns sprouting from the top of her skull are a dead giveaway. Her teeth have become sharper than usual, but at least they don't have the needle-like quality of John's worst nightmares.

Wait, Vriska's speaking again. He tunes in at the last second. "...so, what I was thinking would be really cool is, we could maybe drop by Minurp Uul and look for liquefied golden beetles, or even platinum ones, or go to Baldacciin and dig through the nitrogen rich sands for jewels, or maybe even..." John checks out of the conversation again, considering his options. He could take off at a hearty jog right now while she's busy jabbering, hopefully getting far enough away so that she cannot find him again, or he can stay and listen to what she has to say. John chooses the latter, but only after remembering that Vriska knows his home address.

_Gee,_ He thinks. _It sounds an awful lot like she's suggesting places to go for that field trip!_

"Say, Vriska," John begins, in the spirit of a person who is trying to get some input on a family vacation decision or a court hearing. "Are there any places you know that are really, really blue and entirely sugar-free? Or maybe just cake-free." He doesn't want to take any chances.

His alien friend considers this question, tapping a finger thoughtfully to her chin. Then, she reaches up to surreptitiously scratch at an itch somewhere behind her right horn. "Probably? I got this cool book from some guy in a bar on Syaz Prime, and I think it's supposed to contain recommendations for tourist attractions all around the galaxy. Hitch-something or other?"

John recalls the movie Hitch, featuring actor Will Smith. He does not think that this is the work Vriska is referring to, so he remains silent.

She pops the hatch to her spaceship, and air colder than the surrounding snow hisses out as it cracks open by inches. There's no mist or laser light show, so Hollywood definitely botched that representation. Vriska leans in through the opening and digs around in what looks like a cramped cockpit for a while, and unearths a vaguely rounded object. She hands it off to John after resurfacing and then resumes fiddling with the many-colored dots and dials, lighting up the inside of the machine with a network of intricately patterned command options.

It's beautiful, but John misses most of it while investigating the "book".

"Hey, Vriska?" He asks, timidly, feeling as if he is supposed to understand this but that he is failing miserably in actually doing so. It's embarrassing, really, and the uncertainty worms its way into his voice.

From where she is immersed in the ship, most of her upper body now out of sight, a faint "yeah?" emerges. She's splayed out over two leathery chairs and looks super occupied with... whatever she is doing to the curved ceiling’s web of outlines and buttons.

John looks at the object in his hand again. "Is there a reason why I'm holding a graphing calculator instead of a book?"

"What? What are you yammering about?" Vriska turns to face him in an incredibly contorted manner that doesn't look comfortable in the slightest, her hair disheveled and sticking up from the effects of static electricity. Despite her precarious position on the edge of a seat, almost rolling over what looks like important controls in the process, she appears to be just fine. Her eyes and teeth gleam in the dark, reflecting what little artificial light there is inside.

Once again, John looks at the device in his hand. His fingers slide along its smooth surface, grasping for purchase in case it turns out to just be a stupid-looking case. There's a brief moment where one of his thumbs catch on a button, and the device beeps once before booting up. Artificial light from the screen smooths over John's face and glasses. A friendly "Don't Panic!" disclaimer appears.

"Cooool," he says, pressing more buttons without really caring about what they do, particularly the ones that look like the directional arrows for a GBA game.

There's the sound of Vriska sliding back out of the vessel, and then she's standing beside him. "Quit pressing so many buttons," she orders, and jabs a claw at an option that looks like a keyboard on the calculator's side. Unsurprisingly, a digital keyboard materializes on the screen, a blinking cursor marking where typing will begin.

"Whoa," John says, teetering up onto the balls of his feet in excitement. Vriska brings him back down by placing a rough hand on his shoulder, most likely because she dislikes how he appeared taller than her when doing that.

"Type 'blue' and 'sugar-free' into the box thing," John does so without a blip. "Okay, now press the up arrow to go into the planet directory." John does this as well, his eyes briefly skipping over to Vriska for approval. She either doesn't seem to notice his hopeful look or is purposefully ignoring him. It's a 50/50 chance.

Before his very eyes, dozens of alien words appear on the screen. It's mind-boggling, and he almost goes cross-eyed trying to read them all at once. Vriska takes the TI-84 calculator and places a rough hand on John's face to shove him bodily away as she goes over the results. He ends up standing there, Vriska's hand planted against his face. John emits a squashed noise of protest.

"These all have weird people living on them. I mean, come on, bipedal salamanders? Some of which are skilled in necromancy? Weird, John. Weird."

There is a small tone of agreement from the human, who is being kept at arm's length by Vriska's hand. There might actually be slobber beginning to roll down her wrist. Ape-descended, got it.

Then, Vriska's yellowish eyes light up almost maniacally. "Ooh! This one's great, we should go there." A weak attempt is made to slip by her hand to sneak a peek at the screen, but it is forcibly smothered. Also, Vriska talks over him.

"Gemstones lining the beaches, blue oceans that glow after dark, gigantic topiary art made out of sugar-free chewing gum? Heck yes!"

"Is there anything hostile living there?" John slurs through her palm. Vriska wrinkles her nose and retracts the hand keeping John at bay.

"Only a giant freaking sea serpent that the natives sacrifice tourists and loiterers to, but that's no big deal," she answers, sticking the Guide into her jackets inner pocket. "We could leave right now and make it there just in time to witness the sunset reflect across the sugar-free hot chocolate geysers."

"No way! You're kidding," John exclaims.

"Yep," Vriska replies, cheekily. "The geysers actually stem from an underwater spring made up of herbal teas. It's where tree-huggers go when they die, or something, as the book says. Anyways— let's get this show on the road!" The way she clasps her hands and rubs them together is reminiscent of a super-villain, but John follows her anyway. He suspects that this is going to become a trend.

He's always known that her tendencies verge on murderous, and that she has an ability to be unsettling in almost any situation, but hey, what are friends for besides a couch to crash on? John sure doesn't know.

The outer shell of the spaceship is frosted over and several of the wicked sharp fins are encrusted in ice. It still looks super cool, though, and John slides into one of the pilot chairs after Vriska. It's comfortable seating, but he can't really stretch out his legs for fear of hitting a lever. Vriska presses a button overhead and the hatch closes behind them. The ship hums to life, a buzzing vibration that resonates in his bones.

John hoots a little hysterically at his situation, and waves off Vriska's concerned look.

There's a seat belt, designed to criss-cross across his chest, and John straps in. He notices that Vriska hasn' done so and hurries to remedy that.

"Hey," he tells her, in a chastising tone of voice. "Buckle up. Click-it or ticket, remember?"

He catches her eye and wow, if looks could kill he'd already be six feet under with maggots and other gross crap crawling through his ribs. Reluctantly, John ceases advising Vriska on safety precautions for the time being.

In the gloom broken only by constellation-like bars of information that extend every which way, a dark arms reaches out and dances across the screens, bringing up new areas for information to be filled out. It's not John's arm, if you're wondering. He couldn't pilot this thing even if he tried.

A few tense moments of silence later, a computerized voice speaks up. "Coordinates locked," it intones. "Initiate automated flight sequence?"

Another, larger dialogue box appears, a 'Y or N' in it's center. Vriska selects yes, and then appears to brace for something.

The ship under them bucks slightly, and Vriska curses as her shoulder slams hard into the side door.

"I told you so," John says, giving her a pointed look. Vriska glares but straps in.

There is a distinct feeling of rising that feels like they are being billowed up by a rising tide, sort of like when going up a roller coaster at an amusement park but directly upwards. The lights around them dim, and then a current of illumination courses through a single keyboard in a series of feather-light blinks. What John had assumed to be yet another screen is actually a thick glass visor of some kind, letting him see outside of the vessel as they gently rock past spindly treetops and poufy clouds.

Just as it feels like they are not going anywhere but into the clouds, John's stomach drops out the bottom as the ship shoots out into the good-naturedly burning stars.

—

The creature seated somewhere near the edge of a shuttle docking bay has scaly skin that is elastic and strong, unable to be pierced by even the finest spear sharpened down to a miniscule point. Long, narrow ears jut out at the side of his head, protrusions that look like the claws of a much larger beast sticking through them and ringed by dried green blood. His three eyes, which sink back into their scarred sockets and are reptilian in appearance, are watchful of the screens surrounding him while he scrapes along the already serrated edge of a thick, curved knife.

This is Shnaack Luvendiak, renowned and simultaneously feared bounty hunter. It has been often theorized if he himself does not, also, have a rather large sum rested just above his shoulders, but those who dare to suggest it are messily dispatched. Not that Shnaack could not be more neat with his work; he would much rather make his message quite clear. To say the least, he has been rather successful in doing so.

Currently sitting at a computer-based terminal, Shnaack is awaiting a new assignment. Preferably one that will be easy to carry out but pricey. Those are hard conditions to come by, but it seems as if this is his lucky day, for just as he begins to pick under his curled claws with the blade a new notification appears. He leans forward, carefully scrutinizing the requirements and the latest reported location of his target, and his brows raise when he reads that this is a bounty placed by the Tyrian Empress herself, and they raise even higher upon noticing the much more surprising price. 

He figures that this kid must've really done something stupid to get this kind of bounty chasing after them. But, when looking through the file more closely, he realizes that this bounty was scheduled to be posted at a much earlier star date but never achieved as much. Shnaack lets out an annoyed chuff; typical Alternian Empire shit. Never even getting the simplest stuff done while out cavorting across the galaxy, spreading blood in their wake.

A soft tonging noise catches his attention, and the repairs to his jumpship have been made to his satisfaction. Shnaack stands, stretching his muscles lazily, and then takes the tablet-sized screen with his target's information scrawled across it, both in more standard languages and Alternian characters. Then, he starts walking in the general direction of his ship.

Whoever this Vriska Serket is, they're gonna get what's coming to 'em.


	4. INCOHERENT SCREAMING

They never make it to the gemstone-encrusted beaches and herbal tea springs.

After traveling for what felt like five minutes, John had expressed that he was hungry, had to use the little boy's room, and could really use a break to stop and stretch out his legs. Vriska, being the deity of patience and forgiveness herself, pushed it for another two and a half minutes before giving in to John's incessant demands.

Now, parked at an intergalactic space station, she is warily casting her eyes about for any possible bounty hunters, or just anyone who stares at her too long in general. While John goes to the restroom and maybe buys some packaged peanuts or something, she is going to stay alert. One of her arms is placed on top of the fuel tank, and she's whistling something under her breath that sounds faintly like the tune of the Andy Griffith Show, only with more pizzazz.

There's a terrifying moment when she thinks that she sees a flicker of imperial drone red but it turns out to just be an elderly native to Alvar-exies, hunched over and hobbling their way inside the convenience store. A long puff of air leaves her when she recognizes that she has been holding her breath for longer than a minute afterwards.

Her eyes shift back towards the station's metallic, heavily-insulated doors just as they slide open to reveal a very satisfied John. John, who comes bearing snacks and colorful local attraction pamphlets.

Once he is within reach, all of the items spill out of his arms and into the interior of the ship. The very sensitive, volatile ship.

John grins at her stupidly, hopefully.

Vriska sighs.

—

They decide at the last minute to go to a different planet instead.  When they finally arrive at the forested planet Sonil H, it has been hours since they visited the space station, and salted peanuts are rolling around the grooved floor and crunching underneath Vriska's boots. It's a mess, bits of crumbled peanuts and shells everywhere. John is apparently amazed by the novelty that is "space peanuts", because for some reason he didn't expect to find them on a discount rack in a floating terminal in space.

It's a breath of fresh air when the hatch opens. Or, at least, it should have been. The air turns out to be stiflingly humid, and both parties, troll and human, feel as if they have to swim through the air to exit the shuttle.

A starkly glowing moon is in the sky, visible in the day time. There is no sun on this planet. Sweat prickles across Vriska's brow as she gazes up at it, watching a few mottled greyish-white clouds go past. Then, she takes in her surroundings after adjusting her glasses to block out the worst of the bright moonlight.

Sonil H is the only planet in the galaxy to have a moon capable of emitting ultraviolet light. Rumors abound that a white dwarf star lies at its core, and that the moon is divided into millions of small filaments that allow light to filter through and shimmer like some kind of grand disco ball.

There are many rumors about incomprehensible things, however, and everyone knows that disco went out of style long ago.

"Whoa," John exclaims, looking at the gigantic moon with its blown rings of stardust drifting around it lazily. "Look at that moon!" As if there is anything else extraordinary to look at.

"Boooring," Vriska says back, but with no real poison behind it.

They stare some more, but for only a little while, at John's insistence. He wants the full space experience, or something. "I've never seen a moon that big before!" and "Doesn't Jupiter have, like, a bunch of moons? Like more than a handful." are among the incessant chattering.

After a little more staring, Vriska begins to suspect that this is some kind of effect meant to distract them from their surroundings, like a black hole sucking in their attention. She looks down at the ground around them and was able to see thick, thorny vines with small fanged mouths covering them creeping towards their ankles in the moonlight. Bad sign.

"What a drag," she tells John, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the spaceship, which has become smothered in vegetation during their brief absence.

—

The red ship lands in a jungle of enormous drooping flowers. Tangled vines climb up the teal-shadowed stems of a plant with wilting white petals. Several others that are scattered about occasionally flicker on the inside, almost as if they contained gigantic fireflies or lightbulbs.

There is hardly a snippet of sound to be heard and the air is clouded and muggy. The popping hiss of the ship's hatch opening pierces through the silence like a gunshot, and Vriska sticks her head out to take a careful look around. Seeing nothing potentially dangerous or with big claws and fangs dripping from a gigantic maw, she clambers out straight into a puddle of goopy mud. "Ugh, gross," she gripes, and shakes her red boots in a little jig so the mud will fly off. She moves aside so John can crawl out as well, still grumbling angrily at her feet.

"Vriska, look at that!" John says excitedly, grabbing her arm and almost making her trip into the mud again with his bouncy attitude. With little choice in the matter, she looks at whatever has got his panties in a twist.

A wide pool of creamy liquid, sizzling and letting out alarmingly violent snaps, is laying a few steps away. Heat comes off of it in thick, broiling waves, an almost sugary sweet smell permeating the air. The whole area gives the illusion of a gigantic caramel flan, and Vriska is momentarily glad that they didn't land in it, because she hadn't actually known it was there.

Despite the sugar content of this planet, John seems needlessly excited, looking under rocks and things and occasionally making thoughtful "ah", sounds. Some kind of abnormally large lizard scurries away from him, and Vriska watches bemusedly as John chases after it, kicking up sticky globs of caramelized liquid in his wake. He gives off the impression of a large black-furred labrador puppy, tongue lolling out to the side in his excitement.

The Alternian shakes her head and turns to scan the area for anything of value, i.e. gemstones, precious metals, books, and costume items. Finding none, she turns her face towards the starless sky, an intense shade of cobalt only broken by small, fluttering buttery yellow moths of a kind she has never seen before that occasionally give pause to land on the many flowers. It is altogether a very peaceful and relaxing atmosphere, and Vriska is tempted to curl up under the shade of a bloom to sleep.

She has never experienced silence of this degree. Even on Alternia there had been howls and screes ringing through the night. It is peaceful, but it also unsettles her somewhat. She doesn't quite understand why until she hears a shout from far off, followed by what sounds like a clamoring of metal and rushed words in a tongue different from her own.

Vriska literally drops everything and runs, even though she wasn't holding anything at the time. The sentiment was still there, anyways, and she's running through the misty woods, heart pounding in her ears and feet catching on twisted brambles and roots. A few thorns scrape at her arms leaving shallow lines of blue there, and she has very nearly arrived on the scene before her feet are swept off the ground, rocketing her into the air.

Her hands catch against rough netting, and she viciously claws and bites at it, trying desperately to free herself. She finds that she is several feet off the ground, swinging from a strong branch and that only makes her more wrathful. In a fit of anger she tears at her bindings, giving herself burns from the ropes and splitting the edges of her claws until they bleed. Soon, her breaths become ragged from exhaustion and she stills when orange torchlight falls across her face. 

She hisses, her pupils contracting into small, feral pinpricks.

Then, the world falls dark again.

—

"Vriska."

Her head hurts like a motherfucker. It's like there's a dozen angry cats scratching around in her skull, trying to break free so they can play with yarn or something.

"Hey, Vriska. Pssssssssssssssssstt. Vriska, wake up!"

Vriska opens her eyes to find herself in a dark space. She can hear water dripping somewhere, and jolts when someone tugs at her sleeve.

"Vriska, it's me, John. Are you okay?" He sounds awfully concerned. How nice of him.

The Alternian shifts into a sitting position, leaning up against what feels like a rock face. A very slimy, pointy rock face. Her face contracts into a grimace, but the effect is lost because of the darkness. "I think so," she tells John, inconclusively. Then, "Are you?"

There's a shifting in the air at her side that stirs up a light breeze, but then it stops. "Oh, sorry, I was nodding. I forgot that we can't see anything, haha!" John shuffles a little, his shoes squeaking against the floor at a piercing volume and Vriska winces.

"Do you remember what happened?" Vriska asks him, voice hushed. While he talks, she digs through her jacket to find the Guide still tucked safely in a hidden pocket.

"Yeah! Uh, that dumb lizard I was after went up a tree and when I tried to go after it my foot got caught on a trip wire and activated some kind of trap," he explains. "And then these little dudes in funny outfits came along and tied my arms and legs to a tree limb and carried me between them. When they heard you coming they went all still and waited for you to break out into the clearing, but you fell into another one of their traps! So, that sucks, but I think we should be fine. They said something about having us perform impossible feats for their amusement, I think, in their tiny squeaky voices."

If John had night vision, he would have seen Vriska's eyebrows climb dramatically above her hairline. "You understood them?"

"Well, only after they stuck this little fish in my ear. It was super gross and slimy." Vriska absently wonders where the heck the inhabitants of this planet managed to find a Babel Fish, and why they decided to implant it in John's ear instead of her own. Doesn't she seem like a prime candidate for interspecies communications?

"Did they give me one?" she demands, slightly outraged by her own assumptions pertaining to her... numerous, totally stupid and not true faults.

John stays silent for a moment longer, almost like he may be hesitating but she can't really tell without seeing his face, and then hurriedly answers. "Yeah, I think so, but I think I hear them coming now!"

Sure enough, a troop of odd-looking beings tramp into the room, faces illuminated by the torches they are carrying.

Looking around in the new light, Vriska then realizes that they are being kept in a dungeon. A really, really crappy dungeon, without any iron bars on the windows or even a metal door. She and John literally could have just traipsed out of here without looking back. She realizes, probably not for the last time, that they are a real pair of idiots.

Their captors, who are obviously not really passionate about their job, stand at about the height of Vriska's knee. They all have at least two thumbs on their hands and amphibious features such as bulging eyes and thin lips spread over wide mouths. Most stare at them impassively, but one steps forward to speak to them. He's wearing cute little booties on his feet to make himself look taller, and Vriska has to bite her lip to keep from bursting into laughter. She catches a wary look from John, but mostly ignores it.

"Harsbuplfdorf," The leader of the amphibian people says, and Vriska's jaw drops when she realizes that they really didn't give her a Babel Fish. Fucking John and him being discovered first. For all she knows, they might think he's some kind of champion and she's the sidekick here! Gross! "Yinjhttyuop yn loonsruni, ijnhsgsgakjak. Yinjhittb cerhf poliytbtk fibawikl thito regreoran."

Vriska shoots John a highly envious look as he nods along to whatever the other guy is saying. He turns to look at her and wilts a tiny bit under her scathing glare before speaking. "They want us to fight a big monster called an Afireplorg at the center of a maze in return for our lives," He pauses, listening a little more to some babbling that Vriska wishes she could understand, and then continues. "It will, uh, spit acid at us and try to tear us limb from limb with really big teeth. I don't like the sound of that, Vriska."

She pauses, thinking for far too short of a time in John's opinion, and then shrugs, a wide grin spreading across her face. "We haven't got much else to do around here, anyways. Let's go kick some Afireplorg ass!"

John looks absolutely horrified that she has agreed to this, and with a nod the leader of the planet's inhabitants has them released from their invisible and, erm, mostly nonexistent bonds.

Then, they are led out of the prison in a slimy procession, four warriors behind them and two leading, with the supposed ruler in the front.

  _This is going to be so freaking cool!_ Vriska thinks.


	5. MORE SCREAMING

It does not, actually, turn out to be cool at all.

The further they walk into the caverns of the Rhefeoniz tribe, the warmer the air gets. Soon, the temperature is almost stifling, and John tugs repetitively at his shirt collar to try and air the sweat on his skin out. It doesn't work much, but at least he's making a good effort.

Vriska seems mostly nonplussed by the heat, excited and ready for battle. If John weren't so concerned about passing out from heatstroke, he would almost be worried about her sanity.

By some wondrous miracle, small plants poke out of the steaming mud, giving it a brown-green colouration in places. It's the weirdest thing John has ever seen, and he can't imagine what kind of miserable lives these plants must lead. He loudly admires each little budding plant he sees, leaning down every once in a while to murmur words of encouragement to them. 

"Hang in there little buddy," John says to one, and then chuckles to himself. Vriska rolls her eyes. "Oh my god, that was a hilarious pun. Vriska did you get that? You should write that down. Maybe some day we can write a book."

He gets a grunt in acknowledgement, and jerks back upright only to feel light-headed both from the temperature and sudden movement. A cool hand wraps around his elbow and tugs him along, and he only distantly realizes that it is Vriska guiding him. Man, she's such a nice friend. They should totally write a book. Maybe a book on, like, friendship or something. 

They pass by dense barriers made up of thorny, dried out twigs, packed together with mud and laying at the base of rock pinnacles. Amphibious people, some with frills and some without, peek out at them. John lethargically waves to a few and gets blank stares for all his trouble, but it doesn't really bother him. The movement probably doesn't look very coordinated anyway; they most likely assumed he was only trying to stretch out his limbs.

Speaking of limbs, he crashes directly into Vriska's back, and she nudges him away with a particularly pointy elbow. Then, she wrenches him forward so that they can both see the entrance of a large, deep purple-bricked maze, with stealthy shadows slowly trickling over the edge of the top. The Rhefeoniz people stand at attention behind them, spears hewn from thorns glinting with the light of an unseen force. Or maybe they are luminescient on their own; that would certainly explain it.

Anyways, heat is coming off from the maze's walls in waves, and John isn't all that excited about going in anymore. It will probably be like walking into an oven.

He stares at the maze, placidly, and only starts forward when something sharp prods him from behind. Just as he is about to turn around and give whoever did that a piece of his mind, Vriska is once again dragging him away from something. Resistance is futile, mostly because John never works out and Vriska is superior in both strength and wills, and then they fall under the cover of an even darker cavern. He hadn't been able to imagine things were able to get even scarier, but Vriska drags him along with her until the hallways behind them are closed from view.

"We'll kill this thing, no problem," she assures him, but John thinks she's being a little overzealous. Okay, maybe a lot overzealous.

John nearly trips over a semi-volcanic rock in his haste to keep up. "I don't know, Vriska. What if it's really big, like they said?"

She snorts derisively at him, eyes shining in the dark back in his face. He hadn't known they could do that; earlier he figured it had been a trick of the light. "Are you kidding me? They're so short, they probably thought _we_ were giants!" A rush of cold air passes over them and the human shivers. When did it get so cold? Just a minute ago his blood was about to boil!

"I mean, think about it, John. No, actually think about it. Don't use that stupid, hyperactive human imagination of yours," she continues, leaping easily over a chasm that dips down probably all the way to the planet's core. John follows, a little clumsier on the landing and nearly falling backwards once he clears the jump, but Vriska steadies him with an assured grip. "Even if it was really big, we can handle it! I've got my specibus tucked safely away and you've got... what have you got, John?"

"Uh," he roots around in his pants pocket, discovering that it is actually much deeper than he originally thought. He unearths what feels like a rusty hammer in his hand, metal peeling off under his nails and a heavy weight settling in his palm. "A hammer. I think."

The two yellow eyes gleam as they bob up and down absently. "Good, good, that'll do." They pass under an archway that he can only see a vague outline of, along with several luminous stones than look like broken stars, and then turn sharply to the left. John sure hopes Vriska knows where she's going, or that her species has some kind of innate sense of direction.

They walk for hours, like mice trapped in an experimental maze, but unlike the mice John isn't trying to gain some deep understanding of life, the universe and everything. He isn't trying to make good money, after all.

Suddenly, the feeling of narrow walls closing in on them recedes, and John listens as water drips at a very far distance away. Like, very, very far away; and high up, too. He's about to shout to see if his words will echo through what feels like a huge room, but Vriska shoves a hand over his mouth to stifle him.

Then, he hears it. A low, sorrowful noise, like a dying person who has just let go of their last breath, spreads throughout the room. Then, it rises in volume, escalating until it thrums through his chest and sends shudders through his bones, and then everything abruptly goes silent, leaving nothing but the goosebumps along his skin. It reminds him of a poem he read in grade school, the tide rises, the tide falls. The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; and then he's being pulled around the outer edge of the room by Vriska.

Thankfully, she has removed her hand from his mouth. "What is that?" John whispers in the quietest voice he can muster.

He can still see the way her eyes narrow in this pitch black, and that's pretty impressive. "Will you just be quiet? I think it's sleeping we don't want to wake it up--" She's interrupted by the beast, of course, waking up.

They both look up in unison as an immense shape rises from the middle of the room, which actually tapers off and drops into an almost abyssal drop, the sound of jagged rocks scraping against a scaled hide. Dust and shale topple down as the creature's shoulders brush the ceiling, and the entire place is suddenly lit by thousands, if not millions of verdant glow worms that live on the cave's walls. Their bioluminescence pulses with the immense monster's movements, and John is finally able to take it all in.

It stands taller than a skyscraper, that's for sure. Like the lovechild of a skyscraper and Mt. Everest. Six bluish white eyes trickle black fluid, and they align with the creature's nostrils at the end of its enormous, angular skull almost perfectly. The head is shaped like that of a baleen whale, only with wickedly sharp teeth. It sniffs the air, stirring up wind when it turns its massive head towards them, incandescent, veiny frills shuttering out to surround the neck. The low sound begins again, but then culminates in a curious, loud series of trilling and clicks that peters off into a dooming hiss.

Vriska reaches out of grip John's arm, mostly for stability but also perhaps for some form of comfort, and John hurriedly tries to jerk away when her claws dig into his skin. Unfortunately, the movement attracts the Afireplorg's attention and it looks straight at them, teeth dripping acidic, sulfurous saliva. It shifts, body moving in an undulation of silvery scales larger than John's torso, and a three-clawed manus lands not far from where they are pressed against the wall.

"Shit," the blue-blooded trolls breathes.

"You mean shoot," the humans answers, in a really annoying way. When Vriska glares at him, he tries to come up with some ridiculous excuse. "I mean, maybe it doesn't like swearing. Or something. We wouldn't want to make it angrier, right?"

Before Vriska can come up with a suitably incredulous reply, the monstrous creature looming over them snuffles loudly, sending voluminous echoes through the chasm. A few shimmery grey rocks clatter down the jagged walls, several nearly catching Vriska on the side of the head and chalky dust falling into her hair. At her side, John sneezes, and then the enormous lizard lets out a huff of steamy, foul breath that feels as if they are trapped in some kind of hellish sauna.

That's it for John. "We're going to die," he says. "We are so going to die, and it's going to be terrible! We're going to smell like rotten eggs when they find us, too. What would my dad think? He would be so disappointed that I didn't go out in some amazing, super awesome prank war, and I'll just be stinking up a storm in my coffin--"

He is interrupted by the crashing of the Afireplorg's head against the wall as it tries to lean further over them, presumably so it can have a better go at eating them in a single bite. More shale topples down over their heads, and there is more sneezing to accompany it. Their dire situation only grows worse as the air heats up with the creature's breath and the rank odor reaches nearly unbearable levels. 

Just as the beast opens its maw and prepares to close it around them, John feels tiny, insistent scritches go up the side of his neck and across his scalp. He doesn't think anything of it until a screech sounds next to his ear, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin in surprise. 

The enormous reptile above them pauses, letting out an inquisitive rumble in reply. Another squawking noise follows, and then it's leaning back and tilting it's head to the side to peer at them with the three pupiless eyes that are on one side of its massive skull. The frills at the base of its neck ripple, shifting between an almost translucent white to a rainbow, prism-like quality, when the lizard John had been chasing earlier leaps down from his shoulder in a single swooping motion. It squeaks some more, and thus begins the strangest conversation John has ever had the occassion to bear witness to.

"What are they saying?" Vriska asks after a moment of listening to the noncensible exchange.

"I don't know," John says after a brief moment of contemplation. "The ear-fish isn't working on them well, I'm only getting snippets of the words they're saying. I think maybe the big one is the little one's mother and that it has been missing for a while. Maybe that's why the mother was so worked up?"

Vriska nods in understanding, and they both seem to accept that their lives rest in the scaly hands of a small lizard and that they must patiently await the outcome. Finally, it turns to them, the mother watching carefully and maybe a bit hungrily. The little lizard skitters over to John, knocking its forehead against his knees and purring. 

Still uneasily watching the wary parent, John pats its head in return. "Hey little guy," he says, nervously. It looks back up at him, long scaly tail wagging and a thin purple tongue hanging out when it cants its head to the side. "Do you know the way out of here?" The lizard makes an interesting chirping noise at him, and tugs at the bottom of John's pant-leg.

Then, with a few more tugs and spinning around in excited circles, they are escorted out of the maze. It is much easier to go through this time, as the young Afireplorg gives off an eerie glow in the dim lighting, and soon they return to the upper levels of the cavern system. Standing in the gloom are several squat warriors, torches shining orange light across their faces and casting short shadows. They look greatly surprised by their return, only in a remarkably stoic way. Vriska and John once again are led to meet up with the leader of the Rhefeoniz tribe, and John haltingly explains the reason behind the beast's anger. 

With a final nod and short giving of thanks, they are permitted to trek back through the sugary marsh to their ship.


	6. AUUUUUGHHHHH

The place they go to next is a planet full of paupers, the sun above a swirling streak like light shining through a bottle of purplish red wine. Everywhere you turn, there is some soul trying to spread their wares out to attract wandering customers, so the street is littered with freshly laundered and pressed items made up of materials from cotton and silk to the sticky threads from the nest of a Mammoth Hummingdroid species. The streets are cobbled with what look like intricately-patterned nautilus shells, and it becomes increasingly difficult to walk when there is an incline.

This is because it is an offense worthy of execution on this planet to crack one of them, as the rounded shells are said to contain the souls of angry spirits that might wreak havoc on the innocent civilians. In order to make this threat seem that much more real, a good deal of the civilians on the outskirts of the main cities have been replaced with robotic replicas, capable of withstanding great amounts of weight and pressure, and equipped with very powerful and scary weapons. The Guide was very specific about the level of scariness the robots are able to host.

John, now sweating profusely from the effort it takes him to step around the delicate shells, looks wildly over at Vriska. He reaches up to swipe the salty liquid out of his eyes and whines when that only serves to compound the intense burning. "I think I'm going blind," he tells her, vision gone spotty.

A black and grey blob, vaguely humanoid in shape and clearly standing upright despite its stain-like lumpiness, stops moving in front of him. Little spots of yellow and orange dance across his vision. "What now? John, you can't go blind! Who's going to tell me how smoking hot I look every day?" Vriska demands, voice high and annoyingly shrill with false panic.

"I don't-" John starts to say, but he is interrupted by the shattering sound that comes from- somewhere under his Converse sneakers, he still can't see anything. It sounds like a very expensive and thick eggshell breaking. With some innate sense, he feels Vriska go absolutely still. "Huh. What was that, I wonder?"

Vriska, mildly horrified and mouth dropping open in mortification, looks up as every single robotic pauper turns as one to face them. A few heads spin completely around to look at them with a mechanical whirr, Exorcist-style, and mechanical red eyes activate.

"Damn it," she snaps, seizing John by the arm in a painful grip and sprinting back to the shuttle in a whirl of baggy pockets and swinging jacket lapels.

—

The planet Dernetto is relatively isolated from other planets that might offer potential trading pacts. It is also inhabited by several species of underwater fauna, and only one of which has dared to venture out across the coarse grey sands. 

These creatures are humanoid, with hairstyles that hold a striking similarity to porcupines. They are known for their prickly attitudes and love for all things organic. Because of this, it is considered prime territory to the Alternian Empire, especially to the seadwellers who dominate most of the upper spectrum. The empire holds plenty of planets that produce exports of interest to the inhabitants of Dernetto, and so it is good for economic profit.

Currently, scientist Kanaya Maryam of Alternia is taking samples from one of Dernetto's four large seas that span much of the globe. It is yellowish in color, almost with a urine-like quality. It might also be mistaken for apple juice. Bold limestone cliffs cut an imposing figure against the sulfurous yellow sky, smeared with long stretches of halfway-evaporated blue. She raises a vial full of burnt orange liquid to examine.

"Oh my God," a deadpan voice from nearby says. "That's pee. This is totally an ocean of pee. Did you see that, Rose? Your hot alien girlfriend has a job where she has to handle pee, on a piss planet."

A much more elegant voice speaks, but there is an enticing hint of good humor behind it. "David, I am fairly certain that Kanaya wouldn't deal in something so crude. Isn't that right, Kanaya?"

"No," Kanaya replies. "This is, as Dave has said, urine."

Silence falls for a moment, and a breeze rifles through Kanaya's dark hair, encircling her horns briefly before departing. The ocean laps against the sides of the metal boat below them.

"What," Rose Lalonde says.

—

Several hours later, Kanaya beams them back up onto their vessel, an array of synthesized tones ringing in Rose's ears as they appearify on board. A faint glittering sparkle spirals across Kanaya's skirt and Dave's sneakers before disappearing altogether, and she has to blink rapidly to ward off the white flares speckling her vision.

Her Alternian lover, or matesprit as Kanaya would so helpfully supply, is the first to step off the platform, bearing trays of the oceanic urine that clink together as she walks. Rose follows, ignoring the many idle statements about the definition of irony of her brother.

Sometimes she regrets cajoling Kanaya into bringing him along, and she is almost certain that Kanaya regrets listening to her. But, at least they have rescued Earth from his peculiar sense of humor, only to, most unfortunately, inflict it on other persons throughout the galaxy.

They walk down a long, winding hallway, barren save for the large artificial light fixtures and several complex-looking devices attached to the ship itself, and Rose comes into place beside Kanaya so that they are walking comfortably together. Behind them, Dave is saying something about how he is glad that no stairs have been built into the starship, and Kanaya murmurs in agreement, tipping her head towards him gracefully, light curving along her impressive horns. At least, Rose believes they are impressive. She isn't from Alternia, but she gets the vague impression that they are unique somehow.

Rose's lips pluck up into a faint smile, watching the exchange between her brother and matesprit fondly, and so it is all the more horrible when something crashes into the ship, causing it to tip slightly and sending them all tumbling across the floor. Her shoulder hurts from where she had made contact with the wall, and Kanaya's water samples shatter over the floor, causing the liquid inside to spread in trickling rivulets all over the hallway. The lights flicker in and out.

"Damn," Kanaya hisses, teeth clacking together with the force behind her words. She quickly scrabbles to her feet and, after helping Rose to her feet and checking that she is alright, takes off down the corridor in a swish of her skirt and lab coat. She still has her black acidic substance-proof gloves on, and Rose watches her walk away appreciatively.

Dave exchanges a similarly befuddled look with Rose, and then they hurry off after Kanaya towards the primary control room.

—

They are drifting aimlessly through space when John finally dares to breach the barrier of stony silence.

"Hey," he says to Vriska, conversationally. "Did you ever tell me the name of your ship?"

The Alternian pauses in her perusal of the Guide, having been looking for some fresh place to visit. Somewhere without giant murderous monsters or robots, preferably. She realizes that, first off, no, she has not named her ship, and secondly, that there are silvery candy wrappers stuffed inside of a vent that are lending a sickeningly sweet smell to the cabin. As she removes the rubbish, she thoughtfully replies. "No, I don't think so. I guess I had just never really thought about it before."

"Hmm," John munches thoughtfully on a cupcake-like pastry filled with the soft butter of the plant Tyrin found only in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. There had been a very large ordeal over the purchase of said pastry, but they had finally settled on halving it. "It's gotta have the number eight in it. You like that number."

Vriska hums, searching for other ideas. She does indeed like the number eight. John might very well be onto something, here. "Yeah. If you can find some brilliant way to fit spiders in there somehow, it would be perfect."

John wrinkles his nose at her, wiping the remnants of the crumbly pastry off his face with back of his hand. "Why spiders? Those are scary. And creepy."

"Joooooooohn, my lusus was a spider! A very big one."

"What's a lusus, again?" he asks, squinting off into the middle distance.

Vriska sighs, because she is sure that they have had this conversation before. "Like one of your human parents, John."

"Oh. Right," Suddenly, in John's eyes, his friend's weird behavior makes a lot more sense. "So, how about something cool like... like.... uhm, I don't know. Spiderbite?"

"Spiderbite," Vriska says flatly, confused by the utter lack of an eight in the name.

John bobs his head a bit in a nod, rooting around for a piece of paper. His search is not unsuccessful as past expeditions had been, and he unearths a pen and paper from the mess. Somehow, their supply of utterly useless objects has grown since John has come aboard. It is a total mystery as of to how this has come to be. "Anyway," the human explains, beginning to write on the paper in scribbly black ink. "It'll look like this, see?" He shoves the paper unceremoniously into Vriska's face, and the blue-blood looks at it speculatively.

Then, Vriska lets a sharp-toothed grin spread easily across her face. "Yeah, that's a great name! Spider8ite, I like it. I'll have to buy some more paint, but that'll be so--" She is interrupted when the entire ship is thrown of course, nearly tossing John and herself out of their seats if not for their safety belts.

Swearing, she looks over to her friend to make sure he's alright before trying to get a read on what just happened. All of her databanks are scrambled, however, some long lines of numbers and code leaking out into others. Then, the lights flicker and they are swathed in darkness, only the red emergency lights at the back of the ship giving off a weak glow in the dark.

On the viewport is a ship much larger than their own, oblong and decorated in a way similar to an Alternian fleet ship. However, it is more extravagant than most ships Vriska has ever seen, painted all in different hues of silver and white, although she imagines that the Condesce's would be even more lavish and much more red. There appear to be many windows lining the sides of it, allowing views of most of the ship's surroundings at all times, but not much can be made out of the workings on the inside. Whatever is on the inside, it must be either astronomically expensive, in Altairan dollars for sure, or important. Perhaps a research ship that sends back information on potential planets to investigate.

Seeing no immediate danger and feeling mighty pissed about how her ship has only left a meager dent on the other ship's hull, Vriska opens up a communication line.


	7. AHAHAHA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I've been here a lot, lately. If you wanna reach me, that's where I'll be: omniverse-rpg.com/index.php

A thick haze of inky blackness looms on the viewport screens, just as they have grown accustomed to. Winking in and out in the upper left corner, however, is the object they have made disastrous contact with.

Kanaya inspects the damage reports some more, drawing a finger across the hull's new alert message which mentions that there is now an imperial vessel-shaped indention in the hull. Sighing, she drags a hand through her hair and squints again at the screens. 

A blue, gently bouncing notification lingers on the side, and Kanaya reaches out to select it. Just as the familiar presence of her matesprit appears at her side, a face appears on the screen. Two faces when the one leaning in close to the screen turns away briefly to say something to the other. Kanaya turns up the volume with a flick of her wrist across a dial and flinches bodily at the unholy screeching that meets her ears.

"You freaking dumbasses! God, we were right here, I even sent out a signal for you to move and everything, are you blind? It's like you didn't even take the time to look in your rearview sensors before backing out, ugh!" The owner of the voice is another Alternian such as herself, only with a shorter stature and obviously blue blood running through her veins. They both share rare asymmetrical horns, however.

"I received no such signal," Kanaya replies, frowning.

Another voice pipes up, infinitely more hysterical. "We're not gonna go to space jail for this, are we? I'm too young to go to space jail!"

"John?" Rose asks at her side, and the jadeblood looks inquisitively at her. "Johnathan Egbert?"

While still in the midst of a rather panicky rant, railing on the blueblood like a disappointed lusus, John Egbert spares Rose a quick glance. "Hi Rose," he says, then looks to be about to continue his previous speech before seemingly choking on his own spit. "Wait- Rose? What are you doing on this funny cube screen?"

"Presumably the same as yourself. I, too, have ventured beyond our world. It is good to see you, John. I had thought I would never see you again since our last summer camp."

"Heeey," John draws out the word, eyes wide and looking at Rose like she has just pulled the most extravagant practical joke on him. Vriska lets out an annoyed chuff and wrinkles her nose at the other ship's occupants.

She glares directly at Rose, and Kanaya bristles. "What, do you guys know each other or something?" she demands of John, catching Kanaya's eye and jutting her chin out in challenge.

"Oh yes," Rose says, a small smile playing out over her lips. "You could almost say we grew up together."

The lights of the ship Spider8ite continue to flicker erratically, and John worriedly looks at a few lines of information in a language that he doesn't understand on a side-viewer. The conclusion he draws isn't good regardless of this, as much of the glowing characters begin to disappear before his very eyes. "Vriska, this doesn't look so good," he mutters, clutching packets of peanuts and thinly-sliced potato crisps to his chest.

"What doesn't?" Vriska bites back, trying and failing to return Kanaya's simultaneously disapproving and judgemental stare. She leans over to peer at whatever John is worrying himself over now, and the words conveniently come back into view. "Oh," it is their oxygen supply. "Darn."

As Kanaya taps at a few computer terminals, her claws clacking sharply against the glass, Rose takes ahold of her arm. Startled, the jade-blooded troll looks down into Rose's face. "Kanaya, it would mean the world to me if you would allow them to come aboard."

Kanaya looks quickly up at the screen, lip curling back a little, and then down into Rose's patient expression. She switches the viewscreen to its one-way setting. "I cannot condone that course of action, Rose. Their ship is clearly of imperial make and has been vandalized, and if I were to harbor them as fugitives..."

"Ah," Rose's brows furrows. "Your species's violent regulatory measures. I had almost forgotten. But surely you must--"

"Hold up," Dave interrupts, speaking for the first time and actually sounding vaguely excited. Miraculously, he changes the screen's settings back to as they were before. Kanaya hadn't thought he was watching her that closely. "Is that... apple juice?" He is referring to the bottle John is holding in his hand, with the Minute Maid label stapled to the side. All eyes fall on the juice.

John blinks at it. "Uhm, yeah. It is." He doesn't really get why this is a big deal, but the dorky guy with the shades might be a deciding factor in their survival. And survival has a lot of significance in comparison to apple juice. Dave turns to screen back to one-way viewing.

"Hell yes, hells to the yes. Kanaya, you gotta let them on board. I haven't sampled that sweet elixir in forever," his sunglasses glint under the artificial lighting in a really cool way that brokers no argument. Kanaya splutters a little, clearly unprepared for this unprecedented level of supreme coolness. Rose is also watching her expectantly, and that only serves to make her feel even more flustered.

Ears turning an attractive shade of green to Rose's appreciative gaze, Kanaya nods her assent. The rest of her crew seems to be feeling particularly mutinous today. "Very well. We will send Aradia to bring them in."

Dave's mouth drops open by an inch. "Shit, no, not that creepy android. What if she, like, spoils the apple juice with her creepiness."

"I, too, am skeptical of this maneuver, Kanaya," Rose says, eyeing the haphazard pile of sheet metal and bolts in a corner of the room with apprehension.

Kanaya frowns at the pair of them, and then at the two strangers who are now gasping for breath on the screen, eyes bulging out of their sockets. She very nearly suppresses the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in irritation. Humans and their ridiculous mannerisms.

"Aradia!" She barks, because quite frankly she wouldn't get the android's attention otherwise, and listens for the tell-tale sound of metal grinding against metal to show the robot has heard her. The android is soon standing at her side opposite Rose, buzzing with unsettling cheer and with her round eyes fixed on Kanaya.

"Hell-o, Ms. Maryam! What would you like for me to do for you to-day before the inevitable termination of your life?" Her tinny voice whistles.

The other troll, who is less robotic by a long shot, cringes. Dave and Rose openly shy away. "Yes, yes, very good. Do you see those two inside of the viewport screen? Inside of that little ship?" She waits for the bot to process the query, and Aradia nods, metallic teeth grinning. "Retrieve them, please."

"Yes ma'am!" Aradia cheers, giving Kanaya a jerky salute before marching purposefully off. Heavy clinking sounds mark her retreating footsteps.

Kanaya sighs. "I was never especially gifted with electronics."

—

There is so little air left. Mostly because of their earlier inane blathering, but John has faith in Rose's ability to save them. A chill still settles over him, however, with a dangerous finality that makes him shudder uncontrollably. Vriska looks at him, icicles forming around her lips and eyelashes.

They are both gaping like oxygen-starved fish out of water when a voice startles them out of their personal montages of their lives' most memorable moments.

"Greetings!" Aradia shouts over their comm, and Vriska and John cling to each other in trembling, nearly-asyphixiated terror. "I am about to magnetically dock your ship! You know, with a magnetic field! Your ship's thrusters are thoroughly trashed, but if you are nice I think Kanaya might just have them replaced for you!"

Sure enough, the torn up vessel they are trapped inside begins to drift through an opening in the larger ship's underside, gleaming light closing in around them as they pass. When they are safely inside, the vacuum-sealed doors slide closed again. A few turbulent bumps later, and the Spider8ite's hatch snaps open seemingly of its own accord, sending John and Vriska tumbling out across the floor. As John sucks in greedy breaths of air, he goes from being as blue-in-the-face as Vriska to a more healthy color.

Loud, heavy-footed steps make their way over to them, and pause to poke Vriska in the ribs with a steel-toed boot. "Wow! You guys don't look so great, you know," They both fail to reply, and so the android continue to ramble on to herself. "Maybe if I was built with the required emotions I would be able to sympathize more than I am now. Which is, not at all!"

"Uugh," Vriska groans, clutching at her side where the android's boot had prodded it. Her eyes open to take in stale, bland lighting and she groans again, only in a fashion that seems to be more of a complaint. "What do you want?"

There is a light clanging noise as Aradia taps a finger to her face plate. "Well, I'm supposed to bring you to Ms. Maryam, but if you keep laying around like that, I see no reason why we can't have a corpse party!" she finishes joyfully, and John shoots Vriska a panicked look.

Without further ado, the pair haul themselves to their feet.

"Lead on," Vriska tells the android with curly ringlets of wire hair and sharp teeth.

The android beams at them, and then complies.


End file.
